454 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Nov., 1899. 
been made so apparent, this committee took the matter up with zeal, 
and announced through the medium of Zhe Register that they would 
be prepared to give a reward for the best invention to be exhibited to 
the committee, and advertised for the first meeting to be held in September, 
1843, so as to allow time for the construction of machines before the approach- 
ing harvest. No fewer than thirteen persons exhibited models and drawings 
of various machines, but the committee came to the conclusion that there was 
none which they were justified in recommending for general adoption. One of 
the models shown proposed to cut the wheat-heads off, and this was exhibited 
by Mr. J. W. Bull. In the meantime Mr. John Ridley, a miller of Hindmarsh, 
who did not compete, built a working machine, also on the principle of stripping 
the heads off the straw. He acknowledged his indebtedness for the idea to an 
article in an encyclopedia, in-which was the cut of a machine used in ancient 
days on the plains of Gaul. This was ’ complete success at once. The machine 
was propelled by a pole from behind, the pole being supported on two small 
wheels. Two horses did the work. Mr. Ridley presented the invention to the 
public, and got no profit out of it except a margin on the actual machines 
which he made and sold. The colonists, however, were not behindhand in 
acknowledging Mr. Ridley’s valuable service, and a fund was promoted by 
~ Captain Bagot. The sum raised was presented to the inventor at the Agricul- 
tural Society’s meeting in 1845, by His Excellency the Governor, the late Sir 
George Grey. Mr. Ridley, with his usual liberal spirit, applied the sum to the 
extension of his library by the purchase of the best scientific works, the use of 
which he allowed to industrious and deserving mechanics. In March, 1858, the 
inventor, with his wife and two daughters, returned to England. Before his 
departure he was presented with complimentary addresses by the Adelaide 
Corporation and the Agricultural and Horticultural Society. He died in 1887. 
Tt should be noted that in acknowledgment of the services rendered by Mr. 
Bull, who claimed to be the inventor, the South Australian Parliament voted 
him £250 in 1882. 
Concerning the first machine made by Mr. Ridley, the late Mr. Dutton 
wrote :—‘ One afternoon during the summer of 1843-44: some friends met me 
in Adelaide and asked me to join them in their ride to a neighbouring farm, 
where Mr. Ridley’s reaping machine, which they said both reaped and threshed 
the corn at the same time, was successfully at work. 1t was not generally 
known at that time what the machine was, and, although we were all incredulous, 
we started to see with our own eyes how far the reports we had heard 
were correct. Presently we saw from several quarters other horsemen, all 
steering to the same point. By the time we reached the farni a large field had 
mustered to witness the proceedings ; and there, sure enough, was the machine 
at work by the agency of two horses and two men—one to guide the horses, 
the other the machine, ‘There was no mistake about it. The heads of the corn 
were threshed off perfectly clean ; and a winnowing machine being at hand, the 
corn was transferred out of the reaping into the latter machine, and carts were 
ready to convey the cleaned grain to the mill, two miles off, where the wheat, 
_ which an hour before was waving in the fields in the lustre of golden tints, was 
by Mr. Ridley’s steam-mill ground into flour. Neyer before was perhaps such 
a revolution in the appliances of agriculture caused as was done by this machine. 
Success attended the very first trial of it, and during seven days it reaped and 
threshed the 70 acres of which the paddock we all went to see was composed.” 
Captain Bagot was one of the first who used this implement, and a letter 
from his pen, published in January, 1845, is particularly interesting, especially 
as bearing on the cost of production. It ran thus :— 
“No the Editors of Lhe Register—Gentlemen—The following is a state- 
ment of the work performed by one of Mr. Ridley’s locomotive threshing 
machines on my farm at Koonunga :—On the 26th December we entered into a 
field of 89% acres of wheat—a good full crop, tolerably thick, and about 4 feet 
high. In nine days it was all threshed, the machine having been at work 6 hours 
